User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Page rendered in 0.2267 seconds
47 querie(s) executed
| ||||||||
Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Tuesday, August 26, 2014Posnanski: Money money money
The District Attorney
Posted: August 26, 2014 at 03:15 PM | 26 comment(s)
Login to Bookmark
Tags: bud selig, economics, joe posnanski |
Login to submit news.
BookmarksYou must be logged in to view your Bookmarks. Hot TopicsNewsblog: OT - Catch-All Pop Culture Extravaganza (April - June 2018)
(469 - 3:52am, Apr 27) Last: Omineca Greg Newsblog: OT: Winter Soccer Thread (1650 - 3:40am, Apr 27) Last: AuntBea calls himself Sky Panther Newsblog: Raissman: Mike Francesa returning to WFAN in the 3 pm - 7 pm time slot, sources tell News (116 - 3:20am, Apr 27) Last: Endless Trash Newsblog: OT - 2017-18 NBA thread (All-Star Weekend to End of Time edition) (2822 - 2:56am, Apr 27) Last: tshipman Newsblog: OTP 2018 Apr 23: The Dominant-Sport Theory of American Politics (1008 - 1:37am, Apr 27) Last: The Yankee Clapper Newsblog: Tampa Bay Rays promote LHP Jonny Venters (15 - 12:09am, Apr 27) Last: Walt Davis Newsblog: OT - 2017 NFL thread (2135 - 12:03am, Apr 27) Last: f_cking sick and tired of being 57i66135 Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1942 Ballot (6 - 11:35pm, Apr 26) Last: Tubbs is Bobby Grich when he flys off the handle Newsblog: That's my secret, Captain. I'm always OMNICHATTER, for April 26, 2018 (109 - 10:51pm, Apr 26) Last: cardsfanboy Newsblog: Today's Phillies-Diamondbacks game available only on Facebook (1 - 10:24pm, Apr 26) Last: stevegamer Newsblog: BBTF ANNUAL CENTRAL PARK SOFTBALL GAME 2018 (70 - 10:16pm, Apr 26) Last: Ray (CTL) Newsblog: Brewers first baseman Eric Thames goes on DL with torn thumb ligament (19 - 9:35pm, Apr 26) Last: Greg Pope Newsblog: Ronald Acuna hits first homer | MLB.com (8 - 8:45pm, Apr 26) Last: flournoy Newsblog: Kyle Schwarber hits 2 homers in Cubs' win (62 - 7:31pm, Apr 26) Last: Walt Davis Newsblog: Jung Ho Kang Receives Visa, Set To Rejoin Pirates (4 - 7:18pm, Apr 26) Last: This is going to be state of the art wall |
|||||||
About Baseball Think Factory | Write for Us | Copyright © 1996-2014 Baseball Think Factory
User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
| Page rendered in 0.2267 seconds |
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. kthejoker Posted: August 26, 2014 at 04:16 PM (#4779499)Or, since Mike Trout will get his $300 million probably regardless, the Prince Fielders and Brian McCanns of the world.
Has this been studied? Or is it an assertion based on noticing an old guy or two play well? Open question, honestly; it's just expressed so uncritically.
Teams don't need to be crippled for Pos to be correct. He could also be right if it's mostly just stupid teams giving out the monster contracts.
I think "crippled" is the wrong word, anyway. A bad monster contract doesn't really need to ruin a team, just be bothersome. I don't think Ryan Howard's contract is murdering the Phillies, but it hurts.
This simplified to an absurd degree, of course.
I don't know about the aging pattern thing either. Most good players are useless at 35, some continue past that. The limit for a superstar is early 40's, as always has been. From Wagner and Cobb to Williams, Mays, and Aaron, to Ripken, Bonds, and Jeter.
It's not Howard's CONTRACT that's murdering the Phillies, it's the fact that he has a OPS+ of 92. The problem with monster contracts is that teams feel compelled to keep playing the guy, even if he's horseshit
Looking at the list, there are damned few you'd say were good values, at least with the benefit of hindsight. 14 of them are pitchers (two fo the 14 are the same guy - CC Sabathia). Out of these 55 contracts,, it strikes me that the one that probably is worst combination of financial commitment, lack of commensurate performance, and the size of the team's market is the Joe Mauer contract.
This. As long as Howard's on the team, the Phillies are going to play him, and they're not going to put work into upgrading the position. Very few teams are willing to cut bait on dead contracts, and there are examples littered around baseball of mediocre players being paid like the stars they once were, marooned out there at first base until their contract ends.
The Phillies have received relatively decent production on the big contracts to Hamels, Lee (until this year), Utley, Rollins and even Papelbon (who is overpaid, but isn't really the problem with the Phillies).
They've received good production from Marlon Byrd, who was a cheapish FA pick--up this year. But not so good production from A.J. Burnett or Mike Adams.
And they've been burned by YOUNG players like Domonic Brown and to a lesser degree, Ben Revere.
And they were burned by the last year of Halladay's deal, this year's Cliff Lee, the Ryan Howard contract (yes, it's terrible) and the fact that they traded away Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence and got nothing of note back........
They're a great example of what can happen when you depend heavily on (1) pitchers, (2) old guys, or (3) old pitchers.
Nah. Due to the very random nature of baseball's playoffs, I find myself torn between wanting to hate expanded playoffs (because they make the "champion" determined even more by random luck, which seriously dilutes the significance of the longest regular season in sports) and wanting to love them (because they make it impossible for the Yankees to reliably win championships).
I mean, that's not exactly how it played out, but it kinda is. There was talk of Mauer not catching anymore before the contract was signed.
Most of those years they had the best record in the league, so their first round opponents would have already spent their top starter.
Yankees aren't reliably winning championships anymore because Jeter can't drive the ball, and Mariano and the rest of the core are retired.
The M's would kill for a 1b/DH who could manage a 92 OPS+
Yeah? Then why did they, along with everyone else, politely decline when Amaro was offering Howard around for free (picking up essentially the entire contract) to any team that wanted him, as was commonly reported?
They can probably have Howard for a C- prospect.
I chose 4 WAR arbitrarily as a number that might merit an expensive contract. "Very high level" might mean different things to different people, of course, and some would see 4 WAR as not all that high, others as pretty darn high for a 35-year-old (which it certainly is). It's entirely possible that GMs around 1999-2000 perceived that 35 was the new 25 and started flinging outrageous money at old guys. But there was no reason to do so, as levels of such players receded even before steroids testing (and by receded I mean from around 5 per year to around 3 per year).
I don't even think it's worth studying further. There is just no widespread phenomenon of old guys suddenly finding a fountain of youth in 1999. There is, I believe, widespread extrapolation from the single data point of Barry Bonds, which because of his salience seems to indicate that every old guy was now a superstar. But it didn't happen.
I don't think it's the single data point. You also had guys like Jim Edmonds, Chuck Finley and Luis Gonzalez that hit their peak in their 30s, and looked good doing it. Palmeiro.
But Poz's theory is too simple, anyway. I remember getting really wowed by the size of the contracts that FAs were signing around 2000 - Manny Ramirez, ARod, Mussina, Jeter, Brown, Hampton. This was before Bonds became Mr. Fathead 1.300 OPS. I don't think that GMs were inspired by whoever the greybeards
People always underestimate how weird the free agent market is. I don't know enough about econ to analyze it properly. But each player is unique, demand vastly outweighs supply, and it only takes one idiot to write a contract that has the rest of the game gaping in astonishment. I think the mega-contracts of today are far better explained by the economics of the game than they are any observations GMs have made about player aging. And several of the highest paid players were said to have been essentially signed by owners going against the objections of their GMs.
I think Fish captures the irrationality of markets quite well. The market for high-end baseball FAs doesn't have enough buyers & sellers in it for big individual irrationalities to wash out.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main